De fato (Marcus Tullius Cicero)
- Language:
- Latin
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~6,110 words · 29 passages
Cite this work
- APACicero. (n.d.). De fato (Marcus Tullius Cicero). SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/cicero/de-fato-marcus-tullius-cicero
- MLACicero. "De fato (Marcus Tullius Cicero)." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/cicero/de-fato-marcus-tullius-cicero.
- ChicagoCicero. De fato (Marcus Tullius Cicero). SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/cicero/de-fato-marcus-tullius-cicero.
What it is about
The Latin original of Cicero's treatise on fate, of 44 BC, preserved incomplete.
Context and history
The text we have begins in the middle and ends in the middle: the opening, the close and stretches in between are lost, and what remains is the central part of a conversation with Hirtius. The question is whether everything is determined, and Cicero lays out the dispute that had split the schools: Chrysippus with fate chained to causes, Epicurus with his random swerve of the atoms, and between them Carneades — which is where Cicero leans — holding that one can maintain that judgements about the future are true or false without thereby chaining the will. Here is the 'lazy argument' — if everything is written, why call the doctor? — and Chrysippus's distinction between perfect and auxiliary causes. It is the principal source for that whole ancient debate, and the debate is exactly the one still had about determinism and freedom, with the names changed.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
[1] ...quia pertinet ad mores, quod ethos illi vocant, nos eam partem philosophiae de moribus appellare solemus, sed decet augentem linguam Latinam nominare moralem; explicandaque vis est ratioque enuntiationum, quae Graeci axiomata vocant; quae de re futura cum aliquid dicunt deque eo, quod possit fieri aut non possit, quam vim habeant, obscura quaestio est, quam Peri Dynaton philosophi appellant, totaque est Logike, quam rationem disserendi voco. Quod autem in aliis libris feci, qui sunt de natura deorum, itemque in iis, quos de divinatione edidi, ut in utramque partem perpetua explicaretur oratio, quo facilius id a quoque probaretur, quod cuique maxime probabile videretur, id in hac disputatione de fato casus quidam ne facerem inpedivit. [2] Nam cum essem in Puteolano Hirtiusque noster, consul designatus, isdem in locis, vir nobis amicissimus et his studiis, in quibus nos a pueritia viximus, deditus, multum una eramus, maxime nos quidem exquirentes ea consilia, quae ad pacem et ad concordiam civium pertinerent. Cum enim omnes post interitum Caesaris novarum perturbationum causae quaeri viderentur iisque esse occurrendum putaremus, omnis fere nostra in his deliberationibus consumebatur oratio, idque et saepe alias et quodam liberiore, quam solebat, et magis vacuo ab interventoribus die, cum ad me ille venisset, primo ea, quae erant cotidiana et quasi legitima nobis, de pace et de otio. [3] Quibus actis, Quid ergo? inquit ille, quoniam oratorias exercitationes non tu quidem, ut spero, reliquisti, sed certe philosophiam illis anteposuisti, possumne aliquid audire? Tu vero, inquam, vel audire vel dicere; nec enim, id quod recte existimas, oratoria illa studia deserui, quibus etiam te incendi, quamquam flagrantissumum acceperam, nec ea, quae nunc tracto, minuunt, sed augent potius illam facultatem. Nam cum hoc genere philosophiae, quod nos sequimur, magnam habet orator societatem; subtilitatem enim ab Academia mutuatur et ei vicissim re